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BR · Brazil · –

Jacareacanga fire, 12 August 2022 Jacareacanga

Out · last detection 30 Aug 2022, 18:13 UTC

The fire started on 12 August 2022 in Jacareacanga, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 18 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,871 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 641th largest in Pará since 2016 (of 957 with a page). Number 435 in Brazil in 2022, of 682.

Burnt area
3,871ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
18days
12 Aug 2022 – 29 Aug 2022
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
12 Aug
2022
Heat detections
391
in a single hotspot: 121 MW
Danger at start
23
High · FWI index
Average daily power
296MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 12 Aug29 Aug
30 Aug 2022

How it evolved, day by day

12 Aug 2022 · 88 MW · 7 13 Aug 2022 · 383 MW · 20 14 Aug 2022 · 76 MW · 12 15 Aug 2022 · 1,265 MW · 51 16 Aug 2022 · 1,058 MW · 82 17 Aug 2022 · 352 MW · 70 18 Aug 2022 · 545 MW · 49 19 Aug 2022 · 51 MW · 13 20 Aug 2022 · 124 MW · 23 21 Aug 2022 · 188 MW · 30 22 Aug 2022 · 89 MW · 12 23 Aug 2022 · 87 MW · 12 24 Aug 2022 · 4 MW · 1 27 Aug 2022 · 19 MW · 3 30 Aug 2022 · 111 MW · 6
12 Aug 15 Aug 18 Aug 21 Aug 24 Aug

Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.

The weather it burned in

34°high
36km/h · peak gust
32%lowest humidity

It had gone 3 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.9 mm on 6 Sept.

This area had burned before

70% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,322 ha in 2016, 1,138 ha in 2017, 572 ha in 2019, 1,401 ha in 2020, 349 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,703 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 2.4% of the area of London (39 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

  1. Jacareacanga 24,042 inhabitants where it started
    3,884 ha reached on 12 Aug
    0.1 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2020
Built-up area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2020, satellite-based estimate).

This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned.

Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu

The weather day by day

ECMWF ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, the standard reference for past weather, and the Canadian Fire Weather Index (the same system Copernicus uses), computed by WorldFires from that data. Days after the fire run until the first rain.

Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)

Day High Min. humidity Peak gust Rain Danger (FWI)
12 Aug 32.1 °C 47 % 17 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
13 Aug 32.8 °C 49 % 29 km/h 0.1 mm High 24
14 Aug 32.0 °C 52 % 34 km/h 1.5 mm High 24
15 Aug 32.9 °C 50 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
16 Aug 34.3 °C 40 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
17 Aug 33.1 °C 50 % 26 km/h 0.1 mm High 26
18 Aug 33.7 °C 47 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
19 Aug 33.5 °C 47 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
20 Aug 32.5 °C 47 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
21 Aug 33.6 °C 32 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
22 Aug 32.3 °C 46 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
23 Aug 32.2 °C 45 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
24 Aug 33.7 °C 45 % 24 km/h 0.1 mm High 25
25 Aug 30.6 °C 56 % 23 km/h 0.5 mm High 24
26 Aug 33.2 °C 50 % 24 km/h 0.4 mm High 26
27 Aug 33.7 °C 48 % 27 km/h 2.2 mm Moderate 16
28 Aug 32.4 °C 55 % 21 km/h 1.4 mm Moderate 14
29 Aug 33.6 °C 48 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 13
30 Aug after 34.2 °C 44 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
31 Aug after 35.1 °C 36 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
1 Sept after 34.1 °C 48 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
2 Sept after 33.4 °C 50 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
3 Sept after 33.4 °C 44 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
4 Sept after 34.4 °C 38 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
5 Sept after 34.0 °C 48 % 26 km/h 0.2 mm High 28
6 Sept after 31.6 °C 61 % 30 km/h 3.9 mm Moderate 14

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 23.0, a minimum humidity of 47% and 3 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 12.

FWI at the start 23.0
Minimum humidity 47 %
Days without rain 3
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Apuí fire, August 2017
3,889 ha 21 days FWI 25.9 Min. humidity 41 % 200 km away, in 2017

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 1.7 mm on 12 Sept.

What happened to them

Fires in the area that started in similar weather: 12. With fewer than 15 we give no figures: they would be more noise than signal.

This is a bank of analogues: it shows what usually happens, not what will happen. With fewer than 15 twins we give no figures. How we calculate it

How it ended

3.9 mmfirst rain
6 Sept8 days after it ended
36km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 29 Aug, and on 6 Sept 3.9 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out.

Weather on this page: Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)

How a twin is chosen

  • Same area: fires that have already ended, less than 250 km from this one, since 2016.
  • Same start: we compare the FWI on the first day, the minimum humidity that day and the run of days without rain before it. The slider sets how much they may differ.
  • Only pages with final weather data (ERA5 reanalysis) calculated in the same way as this fire’s; agricultural and grass burns and pages with data under review are left out.
  • Fires burning at the same time as this one (a week before or after) are left out: they share the same spell of weather and do not count as a precedent.
  • They are sorted by similarity, and the outlines of the first five are drawn.

How we calculate it

Before and after, from space

Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.

Before · 5 Aug 2022
After · 5 Sept 2022

If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.

The smoke

CAMS · Copernicus

On 16 August 2022 the air beside the fire reached 355 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 164: 11 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak355 µg/m³
Days over the guideline16 days
PM10508 µg/m³
Optical depth1.87
10 Aug14 Aug18 Aug22 Aug
Good Fair Moderate Poor Very poor Extremely poor

Particles from the Copernicus CAMS model at the centre of the perimeter; these are not measurements in each town. The pale bar is the worst hour, the solid one the daily average.

Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS)

Detections table · 391Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
⬇ Download CSV Times in UTC. Each detection is a 375 m pixel: a large fire yields hundreds per pass.
Date and timeSatelliteFRP (MW)LatLon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Brazil

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Jacareacanga fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 12 August 2022 to 29 August 2022 (18 days). The perimeter dates it from 12 August 2022 to 22 August 2022.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 3,871 hectares (38.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Jacareacanga (3,884 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 34.3 °C, humidity dropped to 32 % and gusts hit 36 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 29, class High.
Where does this data come from?
From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Brazil (geoBoundaries). It is not an official report.

Where to verify it

A satellite detection is not an official report. Final figures and the fire’s status are published by each country’s emergency service.

Emergency number: 193 · Emergency number and official warnings

Satellite cross-check

History of this page · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
  1. Last day with fire: 22 August 2022 → 29 August 2022.

RSS Changes to this page With cross-checks and a citable version

Does something look wrong on this page?

This page is built from satellite data and official records, and it sometimes gets things wrong: the wrong dates, the wrong town, two fires merged into one, or something that was not a wildfire at all. If you know this fire first-hand (you live nearby, saw it, fought it or reported on it), tell us what really happened and we will check it.

Report an error
What do you think is wrong?

We will only use your email to reply about this report. Privacy. This is not an emergency service: if there is a fire now, call 193.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 12 August 2022 to 22 August 2022. 391 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
  • We have not matched this page with any official record.
  • Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
  • Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2020, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.

How we build fire pages: methodology

Where this data comes from

The perimeter comes from the Copernicus Global Wildfire Information System (GWIS), which rebuilds it from MODIS and VIIRS heat detections and publishes it under CC BY 4.0. It is not measured on imagery as in Europe, so it is an estimate. Heat detections come from the VIIRS sensors aboard Suomi-NPP and NOAA-20, distributed by NASA FIRMS at 375 m resolution. Municipal boundaries come from geoBoundaries ADM2 (Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Intergovernmental Organisations (CC BY 3.0 IGO)). The area per municipality is computed by WorldFires by crossing the perimeter with those boundaries, so it may differ from each country’s official figure.